These Historic Military Parades Turned Heads

These Historic Military Parades Turned Heads

These Historic Military Parades Turned Heads

Author

Website Name

history.com

Year Published

2018

Title

These Historic Military Parades Turned Heads

URL

https://www.history.com/news/military-parades-throughout-history

Access Date

May 24, 2018

Publisher

A+E Networks

Whether a victory march, a commemoration of past conflict or a showy flexing of military muscle, the tradition of soldiers publicly parading with their weapons goes back for millennia. Long designed to stir flag-waving fervor and impress enemies, such lockstep processions have especially been a favorite vehicle for authoritarian regimes throughout history.

(Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ancient Rome, circa 223 B.C.
As seen in this 1818 engraving by Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman military commander Marcus Claudius Marcellus (c.268-c.208 BC) returned to Rome in triumph, having defeated the Insubrian Gauls.

(Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images)

France, August 1804
Napoleon at the Boulogne-sur-Mer military parade. This was the site where he assembled his “grand army” to invade Britain.

(Credit: Mathew Brady/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

United States, May 1865
A Civil War infantry unit with fixed bayonets marched on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., followed by ambulances, during the “Grand Review” of the Union Army.

(Credit: AP Photo)

Germany, September 1938
Thousands of marching Nazi stormtroopers paraded before Adolf Hitler in the streets of Nuremberg.

(Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

Soviet Union, May 1965
An intercontinental missile crossed Moscow’s Red Square during the military parade, marking the 20th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe.

(Credit: Terry Ashe/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

United States, June 1991
Battle-fatigue-clad veterans of Operation Desert Storm marched in a Gulf War victory procession, the last military parade held in the U.S. capital.

(Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

North Korea, July 2013
Rocket launchers passed through Kim Il-Sung Square in the capital of Pyongyang during a military parade marking the 60th anniversary of the end of fighting in the Korean War. Leader Kim Jong-Un presided over the ceremony.

(Credit: Xinhua/Zhu Zheng via Getty Images)

China, September 2015
In one of the largest parades of all time, China held a grand military procession to mark the 70th anniversary of victory in what it called “the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.”

(Credit: Eliot Blondet/Sipa USA/AP Photo)

France, July 2017
Atmosphere during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, celebrating the uprising that led to the French Revolution.